Mapping poverty in rural Papua New Guinea

Abstract

Mapping of expected rural poverty rates in Papua New Guinea at provincial, district and local government levels shows that national grants to provinces appear to be unrelated to poverty status. Moreover, given the high level of within-province heterogeneity of poverty, public spending that tries to target poor provinces is likely to miss large numbers of poor people in other provinces, while benefiting the non-poor in the areas selected for interventions. Show more